Help us to deal with aggressive behaviour of students — School for the Deaf Authorities
Authorities of the School for the Deaf at Mampong-Akuapem have bemoaned the high rate of abuse of teachers by the students in the school and have called on the government to intervene to help control the situation.
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The Assistant Headmaster of the school, Divine Edem Kodadza, said due to the new educational policy which barred teachers from punishing the students, the authorities were finding it difficult to manage the situation.
He said in a worst-case scenario, the school had to invite the police to the school to caution the students and, if necessary, the students involved were suspended.
“There was a recent case where some students molested a teacher to the point that the school had to take him to the hospital for treatment,” Mr Kodadza said.
The Youth and Crime
He said this when the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) extended its educational outreach programme dubbed "The Youth and Crime” to the school to educate the students on the types of crime, its causes and how they could stay away from them.
“The Youth and Crime” is a new programme that the GPS has adopted to help reduce the prison population.
The programme, which started in October last year, targets the youth and seeks to educate them on how they could stay away from crime.
Attacks
Mr Kodadza said due to the situation of the students, most of them were hyperactive and the “commonest way they can express themselves is through physical aggression.”
Because of that, he said the slightest mistake from a teacher could lead to him or her being attacked.
He, therefore, suggested that the government should help address the situation by increasing the number of classrooms and teachers to reduce the student-teacher ratio in the school.
“Anytime education officials come here, they think that we are overstaffed, meanwhile handling these children demands more time and attention than the regular schools.
“The number of students a teacher has to handle in a special school is different from the regular schools.
We currently have classes which hold over 30 students and under normal circumstances, such classes must be divided into three,” Mr Kodadza said.
He further commended the GPS for extending its outreach programme to the school.
He said such frequent engagements would enable students to understand the magnitude of their actions and be more cautious whenever they got agitated.
Crime education
The Head of Media Relations at the GPS, Deputy Superintendent Irene Pokuah Wiredu, who took the students through the education on crime, elaborated on the consequences of crime, emphasising that anyone could end up incarcerated if their actions harmed others or violated social norms.
She listed examples of offences that could lead to imprisonment, including threats of violence, physical and sexual assault, drug use and possession, and robbery.
Also, she explained the factors that contributed to juvenile delinquency such as broken homes, idleness, peer pressure, unemployment and poverty.
DSP Wiredu urged the students to be law-abiding and avoid drug and alcohol use which could lead to conviction and imprisonment.
Delight
The Public Relations Officer of the GPS, Superintendent Adamu Abdul Latif, expressed delight at the interactive nature of the programme.
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He said the officers had received a lot of information from the students which would serve as an eye-opener in the operations of the GPS.
For instance, he said it was important for the service to train more officers in sign language and also learn how to handle persons with disability.